Wayne Dyer tells the story about a memory he had during a spiritual experience. The memory took place before his birth, and his soul was deciding under what conditions it would be incarnated. He says that during his life on earth he wanted to teach others about unconditional love and finding their inner strength, so he knew that he first had to develop those qualities in himself. The best way to do that, he reasoned, was through a difficult circumstance. So it was at that time, before he was even born, that he decided his father needed to be an alcoholic who would later abandon him to an orphanage.

I think about this story a lot. There are a number of spiritual teachers who propose that we choose our parents, that our souls map out major players and events in our lives long before they actually happen, that there are no such things as accidents. Most of the time, I’m inclined to believe this way. Of course, the bitch of the whole thing is that once you’re here on earth (and not wherever you were before you came here), you forget all the reasons your soul had for picking out your family, your partner, your job, and even your body (you know, the one with the receding hairline).

Many people who have had out-of-body or near-death experiences say that in between lifetimes, our soul has counselors, other souls who advise us on how best to set up our life here on earth. I guess those counselors are pretty sharp, and they say things like, “I know it’s been a while since you’ve been in a physical body, and you’ve probably forgotten how miserable it can be to have back problems. Maybe you don’t really want to go to earth this time. Take another look. It’s a fucking mess down there.” I also guess our souls are pretty determined, like they can look at the plan for a painful life, decide that the positives far outweigh the negatives, and say, “Sign me up. I can take it.”

Personally, I haven’t had a spiritual experience during which I’ve remembered why my soul decided to come to earth. But I’m constantly attracted to literature and teachers that talk about unconditional love and the idea that life is kind, so it probably has something to do with learning more about those things. As a result, I can usually look at even the most terrible events that have happened in my life and see that those are the times when I grew the most. So the older I get, the more reluctant I am to label any experience as bad. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I enjoy the difficult times, but it does make them more bearable.

These things have been on my mind today because this afternoon I went to a walk-in clinic. I’ve been coughing for a week now, and last night during a fit of coughing, I think I actually levitated and I know for certain that my chest vibrated. I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think that’s supposed to happen. So I went to the doctor and found out that I have an upper respiratory infection, probably brought on by “allergy season.”

Even as I’m typing now, I’m fighting the urge to not get frustrated because I’ve been on so many antibiotics lately (and I hate that) and because I just had that sinus surgery and it’s easy to look at the mucus that I cough up every morning and think that it didn’t do a damn bit of good. I’m so tired of getting sick (again) that my knee-jerk reaction is to label the whole thing as “bad.”

Now, that being said, I’ve done a pretty decent job today of not letting that frustration overwhelm me. Rather, I’ve thought a lot about the fact that everyone at the clinic and pharmacy was extremely kind and helpful. Insurance took care of the majority of charges, and the doctor was gentle and attentive. When I told him I taught dance, he asked if I had a studio, and when I said that I’d closed mine and wanted to move, he said, “I hope you find yourself in a place you love doing what you enjoy doing.”

I imagine that he has no idea what a simple sentence like that means to me. Most days, I keep my chin up. I can look at my life the way it is—living with my parents, in a town I’m grateful for but not in love with, having no definite plan for what’s to come next, worried my dreams won’t come true—and keep putting one foot in front of the other. But when I get sick, especially with a sinus infection, I tend to lose hope. And I’ve spent so much time being scared of and intimidated by life as a whole, that it’s a really big thing to sit in a doctor’s office comfortably and recognize the moment for what it was—kind.

I spent this evening reading another hundred pages in Andrew Solomon’s book about depression, so my parents and I talked about it, and my mom told my dad how grateful she was that he’d stuck by her for all these years. (It’s common for depressives to lose their jobs, friends, and spouses.) The conversation made me think of just how hopeless depression must feel, especially chronic depression like my mom’s. Comparatively, my sinus issues are nothing, although they do bring up that feeling of hopelessness.

When I look at my mom, I see someone who is really strong, although I’m sure she doesn’t feel that way most of the time. But she was probably one of those souls that said, “Sign me up. I can take it.” I wouldn’t presume to know what her journey is all about, but when I think about why my soul might choose a mom with depression, I imagine that it would be because it’s teaching me to be gentler with myself and others, to be more compassionate, to be less demanding. As Mom said once, “You don’t have to excel every day.”

And when I think about why in god’s name I might choose a body with tendency for sinus infections, I imagine it would be because it’s been the perfect vehicle for me to learn to love myself—no matter how I feel—no matter what condition. Additionally, it’s helping me see the world as a kinder place, a place where there is help, a place where there is hope, a place where there is rest for the tired.